Following the elections, congressional Republicans are pushing once again for major reforms to your health care act.
OBAMA: Mm-hmm.
QUESTION: In the past, you’ve said you hope some good ideas, that you don’t want to undermine the bill. Can you tell us what specific ideas you’re ruling out?
….
On health care, there are certainly some lines I’m going to draw. Repeal of the law, I won’t sign. Efforts that would take away health care from the 10 million people who now have it and the millions more who are eligible to get it, we’re not going to support. In some cases, there may be recommendations that Republicans have for changes that would undermine the structure of the law, and you know, I’ll be very honest with them about that and say “look, the law doesn’t work if you pull out that piece or that piece…..”QUESTION: (inaudible) the individual mandate one of those lines that came across?
OBAMA: Yeah, the individual mandate is a line I came across because the concept, borrowed from Massachusetts, from a law instituted by a former opponent of mine, Mitt Romney, understood that if you’re providing health insurance to people through the private marketplace, then you’ve got to make sure that people can’t game the system and just wait until they get sick before they go try to buy health insurance. You can’t ensure that people with preexisting conditions can get health insurance unless you also say, while you’re healthy, before you need it, you’ve got to — you’ve got to get health insurance…..
So the core aspects of the law are off the table. This will produce a shutdown
QUESTION: Keystone XL pipeline, they will send you legislation on that. They will ask you to repeal the medical device tax as a part of a funding mechanism of the Affordable Care Act….
Obama:… — OK — medical device tax — you know, I’ve already answered the question. We are going to take a look at whatever ideas — let me take a look comprehensively at the ideas that they present. Let’s give them time to — to tell me. I’d rather hear it from them than from you
The agreement zone that Obama is sketching out is one that does not significantly alter the three legged stool of private market near universal health insurance. Those three legs are community ratings, subsidies and participation enforcement mechanism. He is laying down a hard marker on the individual mandate but I think the Democratic policy wonks who we know he listens to would be willing to trade an individual mandate for other participation enforcement mechanisms like the Medicare Late Enrollment Penalty scheme or very narrow open enrollment windows and much tighter qualifying event triggers as long as they do the same thing. Those are the three non-negoatiable items from his point of view, and since he has both a veto pen and at least a third of one chamber, those are enforcable views.
Notably he does not care too much about the medical device tax. That is a trading chip with low value. It is enough to cover the big blind.
Also of note is no mention of the employer mandate. The Urban Institute argues that getting rid of the mandate does also nothing to change coverage while screwing some workers and adding administrative burden and perverse incentives to employers:
Our analyses as well as that of others find that eliminating the employer mandate will not reduce insurance coverage significantly, contrary to its supporters’ expectations. Eliminating it will remove labor market distortions that have troubled employer groups and which would harm some workers. However, new revenue sources will be required to replace that anticipated to be raised by the employer mandate.
The National Federation of Independent Business and other conservative groups also want to get rid of the employer mandate. The question that could provoke significant conflict would be whether and how to replace the lost revenue. If there is no replacement, this is an easy policy and political win for everyone. The Republicans get a pound of flesh, their supporters are happy, while Democrats get a ‘mend don’t end’ moment as well as better coverage for low wage employees on the Exchange.
RP
I’ve never really understood the point of the employer mandate. Shouldn’t the long term goal be to move away from the employer healthcare model? I would love it if my employer could say “you can either take our insurance or you can buy a policy on the exchange and we’ll give X dollars a month to apply to coverage and that won’t be taxed.”
And I imagine most employers would love not to have to deal with the headaches associated with employee healthcare plans.
Richard Mayhew
@RP: The goal was three fold:
1) Raise revenue
2) Get people covered with lower Federal government costs
3) Slow the transition out of employer sponsored coverage/make sure the Exchange risk pool is not a defacto high cost dumping ground.
#1 and #2 were mainly there to appease the CBO gods (I think the biggest problem with PPACA was the insistence that the Democrats had to be responsible and had to come in both as a deficit reduction package AND under a trillion….) took a lot of options off the table, but we go to legislate with the lawmakers we have not the ones we want.
Doc Sportello
Maybe swap the employer mandate for a public option?
Kay
I really worry about getting rid of the employer mandate. For one thing, doesn’t this mean we’ll be subsidizing low wage employers even more than we already are? The “mandate” is a fine which covers the cost if they don’t provide insurance for their employees, is it not? For another, it’s a fairness issue. The only people who get a mandate are individuals?
To me, the idea was low wage employers were going to have to start contributing to what is (now) the rest of us covering their employees’ health care costs. They could provide insurance or pay a fine. I hate the idea that the only people who (potentially) get fined under this system are individuals.
Is there something I don’t understand? Don’t low wage employers just shift all their people over to Medicaid or subsidies on the exchange and walk away with no responsibility? How is that fair to better employers?
MomSense
@RP:
I think the current employer mandate requires that employers subsidize their employees if they have to go to the exchange to buy health insurance.
@Kay:
I share your concern that without the employer mandate employers like Walmart will never have to meet their obligations to their employees.
Amir Khalid
I suspect the Republican party’s intent is to pull out enough pieces out of Obamacare to make it crash. So if you point out to them the critical pieces, they’ll be glad you did but they won’t stop to thank you.
Richard Mayhew
@Amir Khalid: That is when the big red veto pen comes into play.
The critical pieces are off limits and veto protected.
Anything else becomes a free vote for Red State Dems
Kay
@MomSense:
I worry about it in the broader sense, too. If this thing ends up holding (certain) employers harmless and shifting all the costs to individuals and the federal government, people will think that’s unfair.
They can pay a fine out of their tax refund but Wal Mart and the restaurant lobby gets a federally-subsidized employee health insurance plan (Medicaid or exchange subsidy) with ZERO costs to them?
I’m okay with “decoupling” health insurance from employment, but I think there’s a real risk that it becomes cost and risk shifting to individuals and the government. That’s a rip off. Let’s make everyone contribute to this, including the hugely powerful low wage employer sector.
All those small businesses who are busily looking at tax credits to cover their employees? This was supposed to level the playing field a little with giant companies. Now Wal Mart gets the edge?
Richard Mayhew
@Kay: The small low wage businesses would still get the tax credits without the employer mandate.
Cacti
67
Remember this number.
That’s how many Senators it takes to override a Presidential veto.
And with a general purge of the conservadem Senate ranks from the last election, the remaining Dem caucus has little to no incentive to help the GOPers burn the place to the ground.
Richard Mayhew
@Cacti: Not quite, there would still be Donnelly (Indiana), Manchin (West Virginia), Tester (Montana) and McCaskill (Missouri) as Dems who represent very red states and are up in 2018. I expect those four to routinely defect. And given the dynamics, it will be harmless defections as the critical number is 67
MomSense
@Kay:
@Richard Mayhew:
Even though small businesses would still get the tax credits, it really isn’t comparable to the incredible tax payer subsidies that companies like Walmart, McDonalds, etc receive.
Hell I want to charge Walmart retroactively for all the health benefits we tax payers have provided to their employees. This is a huge operating expense for small businesses and part of what makes it possible for Walmart to undercut their prices and drive them out of business.
Kay
@Richard Mayhew:
Right, but now large low wage businesses get federally-paid health insurance for their employees that will be the same as that of small businesses.
The point (to me) was they were finally going to have to reimburse us for the fact that we all subsidize their business model.
I cannot imagine making an equity argument to an individual who makes 35k a year and has to pay a portion of her mandated insurance while Wal Mart pays nothing. Of course they’re lobbying to get rid of it. It’s the first time they’ve ever had to cover some of the costs of their business model that they adroitly shifted to the public.
This is race to the bottom stuff, IMO. It’s risk-shifting and cost-shifting to the people who have the least capacity to absorb either more cost or more risk.
I get that low wage employers want to contribute nothing. That’s why we have lawmakers. To force them to.
mb
Sounds like everything the Rs want is going to increase the deficit. That is going to fire up the deficit hawks within the GOP — and those few left among the Ds (Manchin, et al.)
On this, as so many other issues, I don’t see how the GOP moves forward without splintering, or at least fracturing. A significant % of Rs simply do not want to govern so every move to govern is going to be met with noisy opposition led by, I’m guessing, Cruz. I think we’ve got a crazy couple of years ahead (status quo, in other words) and I wouldn’t get too worried or excited about anything substantive hitting the President’s desk.
Jinchi
@mb:
Deficit hawks in the GOP? That was a joke, right?
mai naem mobile
@mb: r’s dont give a shit about deficits esp. now when a D is president.
mai naem mobile
The insurance cos. are not going to let the GOP repeal O-care. Also, people will have gotten O-care for 4 years and if they win the presidency and hold the senate in ’16, chances are they aren’t going to be able to kill O-care for 2018 so it’ll have been around for 5 years and the hospitals arent going to want to go back to uncompensated care.
gene108
There are enough stories of people getting their hours cut, so employers do not have to cover them that some fix is in order.
How to pay for the lost revenue needs to be figured out.
Unfortunately, I can see Republicans demand getting rid of the employer mandate, while off-setting the lost revenue with Medicaid cuts.
gene108
@mai naem mobile:
For the non-Medicaid expansion states the old system would be preferable because the law did not foresee John Roberts fuck you to half the country.
It’ll be a big rift between Democratic and Republican led states.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
I don’t worry about it being a subsidy to low wage employers. I want health insurance disconnected from employment. Full stop. I don’t want employers involved in it at all. The proper battle there is low wages themselves, not health insurance.
Richard Mayhew
@gene108: and those Medicaid cuts get the veto, as Medicaid is a core element of PPACA.
Bobby B.
Let’s just assume his “ummm…”s are solid gold and deconstruct them to the masses. Lao Tzu, baby, Lao Tzu!
azlib
Getting rid of just the employer mandate could move us towards a single payer system as the Federal Gov takes on more of the costs of coverage through the Exchange subsidies or Medicaid. If I was an R, I’d couple the employer mandate witht the individual mandate and spin it that the two are equivalent. That would destroy the ACA.
The fight will mostly boil down to how the system is funded. The Rs will attempt to defund the ACA at every opportunity. Getting rid of the mandates defunds the program. I also think the Rs will go after the high income surcharge. I think that piece of the legislation is what has the 0.1% riled up the most about the ACA. With the surcharge on high income individuals (including capital gains) plus the expiration of the high end Bush tax cuts, income tax rates are just about back to Clinton era rates for high income individuals.
Someguy
My mom and a doctor cousin who runs a pretty good size practice – both unfortnately obnoxious, knee jerk Obama haters – got their insurance termination notices this week. Mom is shopping for new policie, asshole cousin claims he cant afford to insure his couple dozen employees so he’s giving some a payraise, cutting back on the hours of the admin staff and just hiring more of them, and letting them figure it out for themselves. (Hooray – 5 new jobs created!) They are fortunately in New York, and have a lot of good options. The part time thing sucks but until you compel employers to insure part timers that is what is going to happen.
They’re going to see that ACA isn’t as bad as they think. I’m looking forward to that shutting them up. They’ll just find something else to bitch about though.
Morzer
Anyone talking about GOP deficit hawks should ask themself one simple, salient question:
How many GOP candidates did you hear talking at length about the deficit in the most recent election campaign?
The point of deficit hawkery is to obstruct Democrats, nothing more. The GOP is now in the position where they can’t obstruct anyone except themselves, so deficit hawkery ceases to be useful. I anticipate more rhetoric along the lines of “Tax cuts for the overburdened rich and a golden shower for everyone else.”
Shakezula
LOL.
Morzer
@Bobby B.:
Did you know that Mitch McConnell was in fact Lao Zi’s idea of a sage ruler?
Rob in CT
The GOP goal will probably be to chip away at the bits of the ACA that help pay for it. This will be easier than repeal b/c those bits tend to be unpopular. Then, if they succeed, they will screetch that the ACA increases the deficit/debt, all the while pretending that this is due to the inherent design of the law/the perfidity of Democrats and not their own perfidity.
That’s my guess. That cannot be allowed. The public WILL fall for it.
RaflW
Off topic, but still politics, and this pisses me off. I bet Cuomo has believed this for a while.
Centrism. In New York. You may as well be a Rockefeller Republican, you jerk.
Morzer
@RaflW:
Cuomo’s centrist brand is about as convincing as Mitch McConnell’s bipartisanship – and just as insulting to the intelligence of voters.
Sasha
Well I would like to see the employer mandate eliminated because I am terrified my son’s job (Panera) is going to foist a bronze plan we can’t afford in lieu of the silver plan we can. To me, decoupling insurance from employment is the primary issue.
What does concern me about Walmart et al, is they do get obscene profits while starving their employees but the real solution to that problem is to tax them appropriately. Probably won’t happen in my lifetime.
Kay
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Weird how it turned out to include a huge gift to low wage employers, though, huh?
Let’s hear some more about that “shared sacrifice” that never seems to include the worst employers in the country.
It isn’t fair, and “fair” is important to people. It should be, too. With the savings, the giant low wage employer lobby can donate tens of millions to defeat wage and labor protections, too, and I’m paying for it. Yippee. They can’t pay 2k a year? Why not? What can they contribute? Nothing?
RaflW
@Morzer:
As I mentioned yesterday morning, Sen. Klobuchar has already signaled one of the tax cuts: they’re gonna lower/remove taxes on repatriation of corporate profits into the US.
It’ll be a bonanza giveaway, it’ll free up cash for the global multinationals to dividend even more income out to the 1%, with plenty left over to funnel into dark money politics.
But it’ll be bipartisan. It’ll show that Democrats are pro-business and not just tax-n-spend libruls. Wee-haw, Republican lite, doing the work of our shadowy overlords.
cmorenc
@Richard Mayhew:
I don’t quite understand this part about how no replacement of lost revenue (from the employer mandate) is an easy policy and political win for everyone. Unless this missing revenue going forward was never a significant amount to start with?
Kay
@Sasha:
Well, it surely won’t happen if we rush to let them off the hook for the one increased tax they would actually have to pay, after intense industry lobbying.
I can’t wait to explain to people why the government is seizing a portion of their tax return while holding these giant companies harmless.
Amir Khalid
@RaflW:
Any news story that refers to a politician’s “brand” succeeds only in emphasising his essential phoniness.
Morzer
@RaflW:
It’s unbelievably weak and stupid at the same time. No-one is going to give Klobuchar credit for desperately trying to appease the corporate fascist lobby. They’ll just take the money and laugh at the squirming dirty liberal.
Tommy
I work for myself so when I could get healthcare through the exchange I was all over it. I got a “cheap” bronze plan. It was a lot less then what I paid in the “open” market. I don’t know if I am alone here, but looking to upgrade. I had some minor dental and eye needs in the last year. The plan I got didn’t cover those things. I want it to cover them moving forward. That I have the freedom, let me say that again, the freedom, to go and buy another plan that will cover my needs rocks.
RaflW
@Sasha:
Agreed. But for folks living in obstructionist red states, decoupling without a robust exchange and Medicaid expansion, people will again risk being adrift in our f’d up private insurance kludge.
It’s a pipe dream, but moving towards at least a Medicare buy-in option for all adults, perhaps by starting with 55+?, would be great. Not gonna happen any time soon, I don’t believe. But it seems like a decent option if the private profiteers could be repelled. (Yeah, ha ha ha, I know…)
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I don’t think it is going to be a problem because I don’t think that the GOP is going pass any ACA related bill that is sane enough that Obama will sign it. He has told them what he can live with; they will demand more.
RaflW
@Morzer: But the finance class will load up her war chest. They love having a midwestern centrist Dem at their disposal, who the locals seem (mystifyingly) to believe is, ohh, yaknow, kinda progressive.
Morzer
@RaflW:
I wouldn’t even bet on that. I think she’ll get a pat on the head and the real money will go to whatever barely toilet-trained teabagger the geriatric rage mob decides to select.
Tommy
@Amir Khalid: I spent the better part of 15 years working at ad agencies. High-end places. I have entire bookcases on branding. Something I did every day for years. I came away from it all jaded. That it was all bunk. That with enough money you could build a “brand” around anything. Rare a person or company had a story to really tell.
Napoleon
@Morzer:
Worse, some of it will end up in the campaigns of the Reps,
beltane
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): I agree with you. Just on principle alone health care should have no connection to one’s place of employment. Secondly, as we saw on Tuesday, the issue of low wages is a simple one which resonates very strongly with voters on a visceral level. Our side would have a lot more success simply going after companies like Wal-Mart and McDonald’s on the wage issue alone rather than imply that it’s OK to pay people starvation wages as long as the employer contributes to their health care coverage.
beltane
@Tommy: You might like this George Lakoff piece on what freedom really is: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/06/1342513/-Democratic-Strategies-Lost-Big-Here-s-an-alternative
MomSense
@Someguy:
This is a good situation to ask Richard about. I was under the impression that it was a certain number of full time equivalent employees that triggered the employer mandate not just full time employees.
panda
In a rational universe, we could trade abolition of the employer mandate with a hike of the minimum wage to, say, $12. That way, you help decouple employment from healthcare, put more money in pockets of low wage employees, and get low wage employers to fork out in taxable wages what they are saving on non-taxable benefits. Not a bad plan for a Red state Dem to push, but I doubt if any are that creative.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think I disagree. This has been percolating for a while. Robert Gibbs was pushing it about 6 months ago. I sense the heavy hand of a huge lobbying effort, Omnes. Gibbs is an absolute shill now. He went from progressive champion to the extremely compromised and conflicted Ed Rendell in what I consider record time :)
People care about fairness. One of the first things I ran into here with the health care law was people with health insurance and (relatively) low wages asking me if people who were on the exchange got a better deal than them. If they pay 40 a pay period towards their health insurance they don’t want to other guy to get a federal subsidy where (the exchange buyer) pays nothing.
I think that’s a legit question. They make 30k a year. They want to know if they’re subsidizing other people who make 30k a year, which puts those other people ahead of them. They don’t think that’s fair. It has to be fair, to the extent that it can be.
Cervantes
@Jinchi: I think so.
beltane
@Kay: We are in that position and pay several times more for insurance through my husband’s employer than we would on the exchange. This is why I am in favor of anything that moves us away from employer provided insurance in the long term.
Matt McIrvin
@mai naem mobile: I’m not too worried about the next two years. But I think we should proceed on the assumption that the Republicans are going to win the Presidency in 2016. Even if it’s less than a 50% probability, it’s too high a risk to ignore.
I assume that if they do that, they’ll just repeal the ACA. It doesn’t matter what the insurance companies think; it’s Obamacare and it will have to die. They’ll screw over their own donors to kill anything with Obama’s name on it.
Kay
@beltane:
Labor did all the heavy lifting on the minimum wage referendums. Lawmakers failed. I don’t know why I want to help low wage employers fund the next anti-labor campaign. As far as I’m concerned labor is one of the few effective voices we have left outside government.
This is a fight. Joining up with companies that seek to absolutely destroy organized labor AND state and federal legal protections for working people in pursuit of decoupling insurance from employment seems insane to me.
For God’s sake, at least get something in return. Get something. Don’t just hand them this huge gift.
“Frustrated by this, workers’ advocates have bypassed the legislature and placed a minimum-wage increase on the ballot in several red states — and they are confident that voters will approve those measures on Tuesday.
In Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota, binding referendums would raise the state minimum wage above the $7.25 an hour mandated by the federal government.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/04/business/minimum-wage-state-referendums.html
Matt McIrvin
…And then when everyone loses their insurance, they’ll say it’s because of Obamacare, and they’ll pass a law to repeal it again.
Tommy
@Kay: We have to be open, at least in my world, to helping others. Maybe I pay a little more in taxes to ensure you have health care. Or roads. Or benefits if you are without a job. I’ve never needed the help of the government, but my gosh if I did I’d so want it to be there for me. That others don’t get this pains me greatly.
Richard Mayhew
@MomSense: 100 employees or their full time equivlancy is the 2015 mandate baseline, and I think it drops to 50 FTEs for 1/1/16
Cervantes
@Matt McIrvin:
I don’t think so. I think if they do it, they will do it in such a way that they can declare victory — loudly — but without antagonizing their donors. Even more likely: declare victory while further enriching their donors.
Cervantes
@Tommy:
Or perhaps you’ve just never noticed that you were receiving it … ?
MomSense
@Richard Mayhew:
Thanks!! You are a treasure!
Someguy
@MomSense: This is a good situation to ask Richard about. I was under the impression that it was a certain number of full time equivalent employees that triggered the employer mandate not just full time employees.
I don’t think he’s subject to the mandate. What he is subject to is the individual insurance requirements. His old plan wasn’t adequate under the regulations, so the insurer finally got around to scuttling it this year. I don’t know how it survived but maybe there was an exemption in place for the ins co last year. Either way, he’s going onto the exchanges. He said he looked into the available plans and they cost too much for him to continue paying (he used to pay 100%) so he’s giving his full timers (a couple docs, PAs and a couple nurses) a payraise equivalent to about half of what it would cost them to get decent insurance, and he’s cutting back the admin staff’s hours – something to the effect of a 30 percent hike on 15 or 20k per year per employee. I think if he wasn’t such a politically motivated dickhead and was willing to take a modest pay cut it wouldn’t kill him to provide insurance for his 10 or so admin employees.
ACA is only hard if you want to make it hard.
Morzer
@Cervantes:
Every time we breathe clean air or drink clean water, it’s because government helped us. It doesn’t get much more basic than that.
Cacti
@Tommy:
How long did it take you to pave all of the private roads you drive on?
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: Didn’t you go to state schools?
MomSense
@Tommy:
I think people tend to take for granted just how much help we do receive from our participation in government. Generations of Americans have invested in transportation, education, communications, food safety, health care, etc. Every single one of us benefits every single day from our government. The wealthier you are, the more you have benefited.
Tommy
@Cervantes: No I know I get it. My family members have PhDs after their names. Just a MA here. We could have gone to any school we wanted. But it was always public schools. From grade school until college. Public! This decision was done on purpose.
Cervantes
@Tommy:
I figured that. You did yourself mention roads, after all.
It was just that one other bit of wording that caught my eye.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
I see what he’s saying, though — he’s never had to be on “government assistance” (food stamps, Medicaid, etc.) but understands that not everyone has been as lucky in life as he has, so he has no problem paying taxes to help them out.
Since someone brought up The Great Gatsby the other day:
Kay
@Tommy:
Tommy I’m talking about two employees, both 30k a year. One has an employer who offers health insurance where the employee pays 160 a month. The other employer offers nothing. The other can’t then go the exchange and pay nothing, or the one employee won’t believe he’s aiding his fellow man, he’ll believe he’s aiding the other guy’s employer, and he’ll be right.
Tommy
@Cervantes: I was talking more to unemployment and those needs. I am a Warren kind of guy in the power of our government. It is staggering if you ponder it for a few how much our government does.
Morzer
@Tommy:
Looks like today was your day to accidentally punch yourself in the face. Hey, at least you didn’t wake up and think “My name is Martha Coakley and I’ve just lost to a Republican with all the authenticity of a three dollar bill – again”
Tommy
@Mnemosyne: You said he better then I did. That is exaclty what I think.
Gin & Tonic
@Morzer: Or our pal Scotty Brown, who couldn’t ride the biggest R wave in years to victory. If we never see him or Martha again, I’ll be OK with that.
Morzer
Noted under assertions for which there is no evidence:
Also sprach Peter Beinart in the Atlantic, having apparently missed most of the last 30 years of politics.
The Other Chuck
@RaflW: Tax holidays on repatriated profits was something Obama was pushing IIRC. It was the carrot to go along with the stick of punishment of tax evasion charges for those that didn’t take advantage of the amnesty.
Obviously, the stick is gone now, but the carrot alone isn’t so bad considering the tax rate on those overseas dollars is currently zero. The only time the Republicans actually pass good legislation is when they can claim credit for it.
Morzer
@Gin & Tonic:
Maybe they could bipartisanly set up their own private leper colony with Andrew Cuomo manning the bar?
Tone In DC
@Matt McIrvin:
This possibility would bother me more if we all hadn’t seen that overload of rectal-cranial inversion two years ago. I remember some of the stuff from those GOP debates. It was almost farcical. The quality of the other candidates is why OvenMitt3000® was the last one standing. And we all saw how Willard’s charisma, sincerity and down to earth charm came through (with a bit of help from a quick thinking waiter and James Carter IV).
I don’t see them doing much better next year, with RMoney, Huckabee, Newt, Jeb or anyone else on their bench. I am not saying it can’t happen. Bush Jr., to me, should not have ever gotten within shouting distance in 2000.
Yes, the not-so-loyal opposition will get 45% of the popular vote (maybe even 49% or so) in the presidential race. That said, the clown car was unimpressive in 2012. I don’t give those wingers credit for doing any better in 2016.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I agree with on the fairness argument. All I am saying is that I doubt that legislation repealing the employer mandate is going go through. I think the GOP is going push for more than Obama will stomach because that is how they roll.
Morzer
@Matt McIrvin:
You mean you don’t find the Paul Ryan Health Budget Plan completely convincing? Those four Post-it notes (including the acknowledgements) took a lot of work to put together and we ought to be suitably grateful.
Gin & Tonic
@Tone In DC: Turnout on our side will suck if all we have to offer in contrast is a boring old white woman. 18-29 turnout was terrible this Tuesday, and will stay terrible if that’s what we come up with.
Morzer
@Gin & Tonic:
I quite like the idea of a Shakira/TBOGG ticket. But I admit that it’s probably just a dream.
phoebes-in-santa fe
I’ve been thinking a lot the last couple of days and what I’ve come up with is even worse than what I thought before. Democrats are real fond of saying, “oh, yes, it happens in every midterm (and actually it does, if you look at political history) BUT, just wait til 2016, when Hillary runs!. And just look at 2020 when all those ol’ white people who vote Republican are dead!”
Well, the problem is that we are putting all our eggs in one almost-70 year old basket, in terms of 2016. I really think that Hillary’s support is wide…but essentially shallow. Who else do we have if Hillary dies and/or wises up to the absurdity of running for President? We have no one. And don’t suggest Joe Biden. (Who I like a lot). He’s even older. I have always had the feeling that Hillary either won’t run or will be defeated if she does.
And we’ve been waiting for the old folks to die off fo-evah, and essentially it doesn’t change much. Dems still can’t get their people off their (fat) asses to vote in the mid-terms.
And what are we giving Dems to vote for? Our NM gubernatorial candidate – Gary King – who was chosen by the voters in a three-way primary – was a completely lame and inept candidate who ran a lame and inept race. I’ll bet the only people who voted for him this week were either relatives or people who held-their-noses when they voted.
And that leads us to another essential truth about Democrats (God love us, because we are so awful I don’t know who else would!) We do not support a president who accomplished so much his first two years – albeit with a strong Congress – because “Obamacare didn’t go far enough”, he “shoulda done this…and he didn’t”, “he disappointed me because he’s not liberal enough”, etc, etc. Now, I will be the first to admit – and to strongly admonish Obama and his administration – that their “messaging” was dreadful, from the very start. But we also display an astonishing ignorance when it comes to knowing how the government functions; that Obama couldn’t right all the wrongs that have come before him. BUT, the economy is doing well, unemployment is down, and so are the deficits that the Republicans have been complaining about for years. Why doesn’t EVERYBODY know that? Because the Obama administration hasn’t done much to broadcast that fact.
gvg
@Kay: He will also be aiding the other employer to drive his own employer out of business due to unfair competative advantage. People want health insurance but they still need those wages to eat. This is why “tax breaks” are so often a bad idea.
I recall being opposed to certain credit company sponsored “reforms” awhile back because I felt that it bailed out credit card companies that had made bad choices in order to get more of the market share and therefore the companies that had done their sums correctly were being denied the profits that they should have earned when the cut the margin companies went bankrupt. Saving the too big to fail banks was also like that although unfortunately they really were too big to allow to fail (black mail IMO).
If they weren’t such greedheads, they would just recognize when the exchange is a better deal for their employees and embrace it (paying their share cheerfully). A fair number of employers would be in this catagory. But they have to whine. Can’t settle for a fair profit, think they need it all.
Cacti
“On almost every measure, we are better off economically than when I took office.”
-President Barack Obama
November 5, 2014
For some reason, Dems couldn’t bring themselves to run on this message.
They thought “We’re sorry, please don’t hurt us, we hate the black guy too” was their electoral gold.
beth
@Cacti: It woudn’t have mattered. I was trying to push this point to someone at work who is firmly on the right and he strongly agreed that corporate America and the rich were doing great under Obama but he was terrible for the middle class and poor. I asked him why it was that if business and rich people were doing so well why hasn’t any of that trickled down yet? After all, isn’t that the basis of their economic policies? His answer was to blame it on Obamacare. There’s always a reason with them.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
I understand the distinction between infrastructure spending and food assistance but I think there is a danger in making the distinction. The Congress slashed food assistance but kept massive farm subsidies. We judge (not us at B-J) one type of recipients as lazy moochers but the other type never has to defend their character. I think the distinction between types of assistance reinforces some unfair judgments that lead to support for cruel policies.
Cacti
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
If GOPers had a 6-year run where unemployment had been cut, jobs had grown for 47 straight months, the deficit had gone down, and domestic energy production was at an all-time high, they’d be shouting it from the housetops.
It takes Democrats to act apologetic for all of the above.
Steeplejack
@Cacti:
And the stock market has doubled and bin Laden was taken out! If a Republican had presided over all that, they’d be calling for him to be anointed god emperor of Dune or some such.
But Obama can’t even get people to admit they voted for him.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks. I disagree on “go thru” though. I think it flies through. I think it’s a gift to low wage employers and solves a political problem for Democrats. The political problem for Democrats is this: low wage employers are telling their prospective employees here that Obamacare will cost them essentially their whole paycheck, is a job-killer, etc.
Menards is doing this, and so is Wal Mart. It’s almost an underground political campaign.
If they’re going to ditch the employer mandate, then kill the individual mandate too. That’s at least equitable.
To me, the whole trick with decoupling health insurance from employment is to make sure that entities with a lot of clout don’t game this to shift risk and costs to people who cannot afford anymore risk and cost. That’s the threat. It’ll happen, too, without really strong pushback and really careful drafters. It’s just a crucial juncture to me. They can’t win Round One, or they’ll eat us alive.
Richard Mayhew
@Kay: If you get rid of the individual mandate without some other risk pool coercian measure, PPACA does not work. The same does not apply to the employer mandate.
I understand your fairness concern, but the individual mandate or something very much like it is critical to PPACA while the employer mandate was an add-on with minimal additional coverage being generated.
liberal
@Cacti:
Yes, unemployment has been cut, but the employment-to-population ratio hasn’t done too well, nor have wages.
Someguy
@liberal: Yes, unemployment has been cut, but the employment-to-population ratio hasn’t done too well, nor have wages.
I’m reasonably certain that the talking point we use for when a Republican manages that double-double is “job-free recovery.”
NobodySpecial
News flash: Employment-to-population ratios aren’t going to be ‘doing well’ for a while, simply because the Baby Boomers are retiring. Does no one understand demographics?
Matt McIrvin
@NobodySpecial: That’s a piece of it. It’s not the whole story; best analyses I’ve seen say that some of it really is discouraged workers (less than I’d have thought, though).
The number that looks bad is U6, the number including people who have gone to crap part-time jobs just to stay afloat. That’s decreasing at a good clip, but it’s still way higher than it should be when U3 is below 6%.
I think it’s quite possible that the economy will finally look good to most people immediately after President Scott Walker or Jeb Bush takes office in 2017, and the Republicans will be able to take credit.